


No Longer Going Home Alone

by Buckysaur



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Cute, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, M/M/M, Multi, Post-Mission, Puppies, Stark Spangled Banner - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-06
Updated: 2013-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-04 12:14:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/710675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buckysaur/pseuds/Buckysaur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce needs someone to anchor him after their missions, but then Steve comes to get Tony, and Bruce is afraid to drift away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Longer Going Home Alone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Evangel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evangel/gifts).



> This would not exist without Evangel, her prodding for me to write, and her never ending, yet ever so patient beta-reading (over and over and over).
> 
> Lien, you're a saint <3

It was a much welcome distraction, a friend, especially in those tortuously slow post-mission hours when Bruce was still on edge and had difficulty distinguishing that fine line between constant anger and Hulking-out rage. So it was nice to have Tony there, when he retreated to his lab, unsure whether he was more afraid of being alone, or potentially hurting the team.

It was being alone, he decided, when a tired and apparently needy Captain America came to the lab to take his Tony – no, not _his_ Tony, Steve’s Tony – away from him.

Bruce bit down on the inside of his cheek as he fixed his eyes on the high tech glass table in front of him, his shoulders stiff with the pretence of not caring. It was irrelevant anyway, why would he suddenly need someone? He’d survived on his own for so long, travelling from place to place, never settling, never bonding... perhaps bonding now had been a mistake.

It was the almost hesitant question from Tony that broke him at last.

“You gonna be okay, Big Green?”

Before Bruce knew it, he deflated, desperately holding on to the table so he wouldn’t fall apart completely, wouldn’t let them _know_.

He _needed_ Tony. Needed him there, in the lab, chatting away as he always did, right there by Bruce’s side. Bruce needed him, not like Steve did, but nevertheless achingly much. Desperately. He had to have something to hold on to, something to ground him after the Hulk had once again spilled all that blood, and Tony’s nonsensical babbling was exactly the kind of anchor he craved.

Bruce didn’t reply. He attempted a nod, but to no avail, because soon there was a tentative hand, a lingering touch, right there on his shoulder. He tensed up again, and then peered behind, his eyes wide in fear, loneliness and startled confusion.

The look of caring and concern in Tony’s eyes was something that he had never seen there before, nor had he expected to ever encounter it. Not out of Tony, not out of anyone, really.

Apparently Tony could see Bruce’s answer written clearly in his eyes, because his mouth twitched and then he glanced back at Steve. “Think you’d like a third cuddle partner today, Cap? This one is known for being big, green and hairy.”

Bruce choked out a mangled-sounding laugh, that actually kind of sounded more like a sob, even to him. Then Steve’s hands were on him too, and Tony held him gently by his wrist. Bruce exhaled and blinked in hazy confusion as the lab glid past him in a blur of colour and oddly unattached emotion.

Then he was sat down gently on the soft cushions of the couch in the workshop, with a warm body on either side of him.

Bruce didn’t know how, and he couldn’t understand why, but somehow, sandwiched in between the two heroes, he was able to let his guard down and let the Hulk go, and instead of an explosion of hot white and green rage in his mind, a warm calmness came over him even as his hands tightened on Steve and Tony’s backs, and he hid his face in Tony’s shoulder and tucked his feet underneath Steve’s warm legs, and slowly he realised that he would not be alone in this anymore, not ever, not again. Not as long as he allowed them to pick up the pieces.

Because now he could let go, and he could _fall_ , but he would be picked up again.

He would be warm, he would be safe.

He would be held.


End file.
